


Talismans

by lovablegeek (allfireburns)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Crossover, F/M, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-26
Updated: 2009-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-05 06:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfireburns/pseuds/lovablegeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roger carries around many things that remind him of the past – and one that doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talismans

Roger's young, for a vampire, but he's picked up things over the century or so he's been around, things he carries with him – as souvenirs or talismans or reminders of guilt, he probably wouldn't tell. He doesn't talk about it, any of the things he carries with him or just what they mean to him, just as he doesn't talk about his past, either before he became a vampire, or after. But they're there, all of the tokens he's collected, and people notice them, whether he speaks of them or not.

There's the most obvious and the most easily noticed, that black leather jacket that he hardly ever goes outside without – not that he needs it, because the cold doesn't affect him the way it does humans. Most people seem to put it down to one of Roger's affectations, he likes the way he looks in it, and that's all the reason he needs to wear it. It's not – anymore, at least, though when he first got it that was probably a big part of it.

He got that from a kid a couple decades ago, he can't remember exactly when. The kid was just a few years older when Roger was when he died – twenty-two, twenty-four at the most. He was dying already, Roger could smell it in his blood, and by killing him he'd probably done the kid a favor, spared him the long and drawn-out death he'd have had otherwise. But he hadn't killed him to eat, hadn't even touched his blood – he'd done it because he was bored, and because he felt like it. It hadn't bothered him then, the fear and pain in the kid's eyes just before he died. It bothers Roger now, knowing what he did, having that in his head and on his conscience, and it's to remind him of that he hardly goes anywhere without the jacket.

He's got a few rings on his fingers from different time periods – some look _old_, some more recent, all of them wrested from the fingers of the dead. A couple have blood seemingly permanently ingrained in the contours, in the little crease where the metal meets whatever stone is in the ring. He used to like it, that reminder of what he was, deadly and ruthless, something to be feared. Now, looking at that old dried blood on the rings makes him feel a little sick – not physically, because the dead don't feel things like that, but soul-sick, and he could probably get it out if he really tried, but it doesn't seem right to do so, so he lets it be.

There are other things too, things he doesn't carry with him, that he keeps in the place he stays during the day – some of them things he took off of people after he killed them, some things he took from their home on the occasions he took it into his head to actually hunt them down, to get to know them long enough to be invited, to get them to trust him before he killed them. Those things are scattered about his home, here and there, so that no matter he looks he can't help but remember those he killed, and feel _something_ for them – guilt, regret, remorse, something of the sort.

But there's one thing Roger carries about that has no feelings of guilt or pain attached to it, one thing he wears always, even more than the jacket or the rings. It's a tiny satchel, hung around his neck by a thin cord, filled with burdock and heather and lavender and he doesn't even know what else, given to him by a little witch when she'd only just met him. Everything else he's picked up over the years reminds him of who he used to be, a history of blood and violence, but this one thing reminds him of something else. That little satchel around his neck, that he's carried for years, reminds him of who he is now, of a soul and of a little witch named April standing up on her tiptoes to slip it around his neck while her brother looked on disapprovingly, of her hands settling on his shoulders and her kissing his cheek right at the corner of his mouth, of her spells to protect him, and his promise to guard her. It's his reminder of what being a human feels like.


End file.
